love is the w e a p o n
by Daemon Wings
Summary: Everything is in a name. TonyxOC "..taste the poison on these lips, can you feel the ground beneath your feet?"
1. Shock

**A.N: **_Hey there ev'rybody! Daemon is back with some words about her new lover, Tony Stark. So…_

_**DISCLAIMER**__: Obviously, its called FAN and then FICTION. So its fake, and written by FANS. So if I'm a fan, I don't own it. See the logic? I will not post any further disclaimers unless relevant later to content used in chapters to come._

_**CLAIMER**__: Fletcher is all mine, baby. No stealies. However, feel free to have her cameo in any of your fiction, so long as you give a small note back to me saying that she's mine. That's all I ask, a tad of credit where it belongs. Thank you. Also mine is the plot, most of the dialogue, and some other stuff to come. _

_I have become addicted to what I pre-judged to be a terrible remake of one of my favorite superheroes, Iron Man: Armored Adventures. So, here I am in ALL MY CLASSES writing in a composition notebook about Stark, Fletcher, Rhodey and the armor. _

_Happy (late) Valentines day, any of you lucky bastards with significant others, I envy you greatly._

_Anything else you wanna bring up? Review and let me know or if you wanna talk about fan fiction, IMAA, my pieces, or whatever else, feel free to send me an email at heymiki (at) ymail (dot) com._

~~x~~

**love is the **

**w e a p o n**

"Rhodey, Valentine's Day is lame," complained the teen. Backpack slung lazily over his shoulder, both he and the black boy were headed for the school building.

"Hey, Tony! Hi, Rhodey!" came a girl's voice. Another young student, around the boy's age, ran up to the two. "Happy Valentine's Day!" she smiled, pink daisies strewn about her red hair.

"Yeah, sure, you too, Pepper," replied the brunette, Tony. Rhodey, the black boy, gave him a friendly elbow to the side.

"A lot of kids birthdays are today. Did you know that?" Pepper asked, randomly.

"Like who?" Rhodey asked.

"Like that new girl. I heard she transferred from a magnet school in California or something? Supposedly she's like, a musical _prodigy._ She's got the fastest hands in the States, according to some competition," Pepper explained. It was insane how she knew all this. "Well, I need to go. Tony, don't be late! Again!" she shouted the reminder as she ran for her locker.

"New kid? I didn't know there was a new kid," Tony commented, leaning against the lockers as Rhodey stopped to grab his textbooks.

"Well, there's Winter Drumline. She's probably in that, you can stop by the gym and sit in on their rehearsal today after school. You'll probably see her there," Rhodey suggested. Then he closed the locker and the two headed for math, their first class of the day.

With a smirk, Tony replied, "Sounds like a plan."

~~x~~

"So, those are the snares. Devin, Daniel, and Andrew," said Mr. Carp, the band director. He pointed to three boys, each with a snare drum harnessed to their body.

"And the basses. Olly, Matt, Clayton, Jordan…" Carp pointed to four students, the first three boys and the last drummer a girl. All four had large drums on the their chests, each getting progressively larger as it went down the line.

Finally, Carp and Tony came up to two students, a blonde boy and a brunette girl, with a set of drums harnessed to them like the snares were harnessed. Tony counted six drums in all. "And here's your tenors. Traverse and Fletcher."

_Fletcher? Seriously, that's her name? How odd. _

"Hi," Tony greeted the girl, Fletcher. He noticed just how tiny she was then, looking at her in the drums. They looked too big for her; she was so short and skinny. Then again, Traverse was pretty tall, even for a Junior. "I'm-"

"Stark. Yeah, cool, it's an honor to meet someone with a wallet like yours and the ego to match. Now if you don't mind, hot shot, we've got a show to rehearse," Fletcher shot. Her voice somehow managed to be soft, airy, through her crisp words. It seemed to dance around him, taunt him.

"Why so serious, sweetheart?" Tony asked the tenors girl with a smirk. She rolled her eyes.

"We're in set. We can't break-"

"I said _'set'_, Fallon! Tony, I'm sorry, but I need off the floor before you get trampled by fast marching battery," Carp shouted out over the gym floor.

_Okay, Fletcher is her last name. I've never known many girls to go by their last name… Especially if they had a cool name like 'Fallon'. How odd._

"Later, Stark," Fallon said, smugly. She even managed to mimic Tony's smirk.

"One, two, three, four!" Carp counted off, Stark walking off the drill floor just in time ffor the snares to march forward, playing their opening riff. The battery charged in all directions, and Tony found himself amazed at how fast they'd learned the drills. He figured maybe they'd used some drills from the fall marching band season. Their light footwork and the music itself left him astounded, the way the drumline swiftly moved about and fluently changed beats and riffs. Tony found his eyes trailing Fallon. Everything Pepper said was true; She was good. _Really_ good.

Suddenly, the center snare (Devin, if Tony remembered correctly) and Fallon stepped forward as the rest of the battery stepped back with a crash of the cymbals.

Devin played his snare solo, the only other sound an occasional cymbal hit and the backing mallet part from the front ensemble. It was intricate, Devin twirled the sticks around in his hands, switched off accents, his stick height altered and the sticking of the solo itself left Tony amazed the boy had learned it so fast.

Then Fletcher began her solo.

Fastest hands in the States? Tony was tempted to film it and put it on YouTube to prove Fletcher had _the_ fastest hands, period. She made Keith Moon look like he was just starting out. She out-drummed the center snare, with an even more difficult sticking. Fletcher was tossing sticks, twirling them, making sweeps across the tenors and playing accented notes where Tony couldn't believe she could even register as a beat. He had trouble following where she was playing, it was all so impressively fast. And Fletcher was starring straight forward; She never looked down to the drums.

The front ensemble then took from her solo into a more mallet-oriented part of the show, and then the drumline was finished. "Okay," Carp shouted out, "take a break."

Fallon slipped out of the tenors, lying them on the ground in the position she stood in at the beginning of the show. Walking out of the gym into the hallway, she grabbed a soda can from a backpack on the floor, which Tony assumed to be hers.

"Hey!" Tony shouted after Fletcher, following her into the hallway.

"Fallon Fletcher, at your service, Stark," Fallon greeted, leaning against the gym doors and taking a drink from the soda.

"Hi," Tony replied. "You're _really_ good, by the way."

She smiled. "Thanks." Fallon took another sip from the can, then set it down by the bag again. Fluffing out her shoulder length, straight brown hair she continued, "So, enlighten me. What's the infamous Stark doing conversing with the new girl?" Fletcher's voice dripped in sarcasm.

"Maybe it's my Valentine's Day generosity," he joked. Fletcher rolled her eyes again.

"I'd rather have taken your money as Single's Awareness Day generosity, Stark," she spat. Tony hid his shock. Normally, girl's were all over him, in love with him (or at least his wallet). But not Fletcher. She seemed to hate him, she always seemed bitter towards him. She didn't even care about his wealth, but Tony took this as the one positive spin on having someone hate him so much. Tony wasn't used to having someone hate _Tony._ He was well used to people hating Iron Man.

"God, _Fletcher,_" he started, calling her by her last name, like she referred to him by his, "Why so serious? Why so bitter?"

The last names seemed to be a sign of disrespect. It was like she was telling him that she didn't care about him enough to call him by his first name, but she didn't respect him enough to call him Mr. Stark. To her, Tony was just a name, just another ego-centric genius. Just a last name.

"I don't take kindly to other people's drama," Fletcher responded, "I don't take kindly to arrogant rich kids."

"Hate to break it to you, but you're acting rather catty, and _arrogant._ And if you went to a magnet, you're a rich kid, Fletcher," the sixteen year old said. "Oh," he added, a smirk on his face, "happy birthday."

And with that, Tony turned and walked away.


	2. Tolerance

**A.N: ** _Yay, I'm writing in a comp notebook all the time, adding more of this. In fact, I'm slapping kids in the face so I can get lunch detention and be able to write in peace for half an hour. *laughs* I need to stop that. Also, sorry for the late update. Finals, drumline auditions, DCI camps, and the like.. I've been busy._

_Chapter disclaimer: Its more an apology, because I have NO IDEA why the hell I'd have Pepper bring Fletcher to the place she brings her. So, please don't hold that against me. Haha, I already (literally)beat myself up about it. And I couldn't think of another way to do it. Everything just rolled together so well._

_Review or e-mail me people. I'm a lonely soul. Contribute! Give me lines or situations, the best stuff makes it in. A lot of the stuff going on in my stories have indeed occurred in real life._

~~x~~

**love is the**

**w e a p o n**

**(tolerance)**

~~x~~

"You should have seen her, Rhodey," Tony started, flicking the welding visor down. "Talk about bitter cat-lady…" He carefully welded a piece of the left gauntlet for yet another Iron Man armor set. "But she's cute," he laughed over the scratch-like sound of the metal.

"How cute…?" Rhodey asked. They had different definitions of the term.

The welding torch stopped. Flicking up the visor, Tony turned to Rhodey. "Shoulder length straight brown hair, and she does that side-swept bangs thing? I don't know.. Um, kind of like Pepper does her hair, I guess. Dark brown eyes, she's pretty skinny, and maybe like 3 or 4 inches shorter than me," he described. With a groan of frustration, remembering everything that had occurred when he thought of her, Tony turned back towards his schematics.

Rhodey, who was practicing the remote controls of the armor, replied, "Hm. Yeah, she sounds alright."

"Whoa!" Tony shouted, leaning out of the way of the armor, which was flying around the room. "Rhodey, I'd kindly ask that we express _some_ caution with the _trillion dollar armor._"

With a nervous chuckle, Rhodey responded with a, "Right. Sorry."

"But seriously… Fletcher? That girl needs to lighten up. It's Valentine's Day, it's her _birthday_, and she's all angry, and catty, and 'get off my drums before I beat your head in with these tenor sticks, Stark!' God, what's her _problem?!_" Tony continued.

Rhodey laughed. "Sounds like someone's got a crush."

"As if!" Tony replied. "If I _never_ see her again, it'd _still_ be too soon. I can't stand her, man."

"Well, head's up. Pepper's got a friend…" Rhodey commented, pointing to a window. There the two boys could see the approaching Pepper, and a brunette figure walking behind her. Like always, Pepper was talking. A lot.

"Hurry, get all this out of sight!" Tony exclaimed, rushing to hide the armor and schematics, as Rhodey typed in some commands to shut off systems and hide on-screen schematics. There was a knock on the door. "Uh, come on in, Pepper!" he shouted, everything hidden.

"Ta-da_aaa!_" the red head exclaimed, bursting through the door. She looked behind he, and the birthday girl herself walked through the door into the lab.

"Stark." she greeted, coldly.

Tony returned the glare. "Fletcher."

Rhodey stepped forward, to put space between Fletcher and Tony. "Hi." He gave a small wave. The brunette returned it, looking to Pepper with a "told-you-so" type look. The boy leaned in closer to Tony, and whispered in his ear, "You're right, Tony. She _is_ cute."

Tony's face went red.

~~x~~

Paper was strewn about the room. Things were in shambles, bed unmade, and small objects littered the floors.

"2, 3, 0, 4…"

There was a hum of a computer, and the light from the screen was the only light in the room. Clothes were piled up against the closet door. There was a snap of another pencil breaking. "Damn it." She merely grabbed another pencil and continued.

"2, 3, 0, 4, 2, 3, 0, 4, 2, 3, 0, 2, 3, 3, 0, 4, 3, 2, 3, 0, 4, 3, 3, 0, 4, 2, 4, 0, 3…" Fletcher mumbled, continuing the sequence. She was sitting in the center of the floor, a guitar in her lap. She was writing the numbers down on the appropriate line. Tablatures. Then she played it through.

"Don't bite your lip to hold back your smile, just think of this as bending the rules…" she quietly murmured the lyrics to Asteria's "A Lesson in Charades". It was one of her favorite songs.

_He's such a jerk._

Fletcher shook her head, reminding herself not to think of Stark. Even if it was thoughts of how big an ego he had, no matter if the thoughts were insults, Fletcher wouldn't allow herself to think about Stark. She knew if she thought about him long enough, she'd find whatever it is about him that made girls love him so much.

There was a soft ring, her cell phone. Fletcher reached into her pocket and pulled out the phone. Caller ID showed her it was Pepper. Lovely.

"Hey, Pepper," she greeted.

"Fallon, hi! So, why did you totally ditch me at Tony's lab? Huh? What was up with that?" Pepper hammered Fletcher with questions.

"I didn't really want to be there, and it was apparent neither did Stark. I told you that before you dragged me there. Besides, I had a guitar at home calling my name, so here I am."

"You play guitar? I thought you were a drummer," Pepper replied.

"I'm taking lessons. I play acoustic guitar. Drumming comes easy, guitar not so much." Fletcher shook her head, a hand on her temple. "I have trouble stretching out my fingers into the more 'unique' chord shapes, since I'm used to keep my fingers tight around a drum stick."

"Oh. Okay. So, um, I'll see you at school tomorrow, right?" Pepper asked.

Fletcher hung up the phone.


	3. Depression

**A.N.:**_ Hey there! I decided to make up for my 10 day absence with a double update! This one's going to be tricky because the two lower sections both make good chapter end-ers. But, since these are all relatively short sections I'll tie in the three._

_Eep! I want it to be Friday right now. Just though y'all should know._

_I will not be updating very quickly, as a warning, as every Tuesday and Thursday I am gone... Drumline rehearsals start next week to get technique and auditions done so we can be ready and all at the same level before we start working on the fall marching show with the full band. I am going into high school this year, oh dearie! Wish me luck on getting my tenors…_

_DISCLAIMER: I don't own Facebook. That's pretty obvious. And I don't own Twitter. But you have to admit, "Follow this person" sounds more like stalking than friendship. Skype = Not mine._

_CLAIMER: Fletcher is still mine. Yeah. Katie is based on a friend, Katelin Sophia Biachler (she told me I could put up her whole name) who does indeed play vibes at her high school. And Devin is based on Devon W., who plays snare (and yeah, is the center) at MY high school. The different spelling comes from Devin L., who is in my grade but is going to the other high school in the city. We're a weird city._

~~x~~

**love is the**

**w e a p o n**

**(depression)**

**~~x~~**

"Yeah, and she just, like, _hung up_ on me! It was really weird. Fallon, hey why do you call her Fletcher and not Fallon? But Fallon, she's-" Pepper rambled.

"Odd," Tony cut her off.

"Yeah. I can_not_ figure her out. She's really talkative, and out-spoken, and, oh I don't know... um, intense I guess is the word I'm looking for? But other times she won't say anything and she holds things back," Pepper replied. Tony nodded, agreeing with Pepper's synopsis.

"Sounds like…" Tony's voice trailed off. He, Pepper, and Rhodey had reached the Tomorrow Academy, and there, sitting on the front steps, was none other than, "Fletcher."

"Stark." The name was spoken without much care, lazily, almost sleepily. However, Fletcher's airy and taunting voice was still cold, even though it had lost some of the edge.

"Hey, um, I don't think we ever really met," Rhodey greeted, stepping forward and holding out his hand to shake. "I'm Rhodey."

Fletcher took his hand. "Rhodey? Odd name. Call me Fletcher," she replied.

"James Rhodes, actually. Tony just always called me Rhodey, so it stuck."

"Ahh, nicknames," Fletcher replied, nodding. "Fallon Fletcher, at your service."

"So, why do you go by Fletcher and not Fallon?" Rhodey asked.

She looked confused. "I actually have no idea."

"Well, we'd better get off to class," Tony said, grabbing Rhodey by the arm and dragging him away.

"Yeah, Tony," he started once the two were out of earshot. Sarcastically, he continued, "She's _awful._"

~~x~~

"Take it from 'A', alright?" Carp shouted out to the drumline. They rehearsed three days a week after school. "One, two, three, four," he counted off, and the show started up from about twelve measures in.

_But seriously, what is it girls love about Stark? It's obviously not his personality… And we can't ALL be shallow enough to just like the way he looks…_

The solos. Fletcher and Devin stepped up like always as the rest of the battery stepped back. And, cue the cymbal crash.

_Stop it, Fletcher. Stop thinking about Stark. You don't like him, people don't think about guys they hate._

Devin finished his solo. Fletcher started hers.

_What do you even hate about him? His personality, yeah, that's what you keep saying. But you've never hung out with him, so how could you possibly know anything about him?_

Her solo was nearing its end. The cymbals' hi-hat like chokes got faster and faster, the lead-in to the mallet's spotlight section.

The doors to the gym opened. Still playing, Fletcher allowed herself to steal a look.

Stark.

And then she missed a note.

~~x~~

She had that habit, making her Facebook statuses rhyme. It kept echoing in her head. She stared down the screen as if that could change the status, change the way she felt.

**Fallon Fletcher** missed a note because of him, her patience is starting to wear thin. Now she's like every other girl, falling to biggest jerk in the world.

She'd missed a note. Everyone heard it, her first mistake in the entire season. It was even marked on her calendar: "February 15: Fletcher screws up."

_Yeah, way to put it behind you and have a positive attitude, Fletcher… Self esteem, self esteem._

The list of online friends dropped to two: Katie, who played vibes, and Devin.

An IM popped up next to the list. Devin. _wut is up wit u? _It read. Another quickly popped up below. _u missed a note in ur solo 2day man u never mess up_

_im aware. _Fletcher typed back.

_then wuts goin on wut happened_

Fletcher pulled on her hair. She hunched back over the keyboard, _I was distracted. _It wasn't a lie, but it wasn't the whole truth.

_by?_ Devin replied.

_a person. _

Katie signed off. Devin was the only person left online. Fletcher felt a sharp pang of loneliness.

_who? _Devin asked. Another IM read, _r u even gonna tell me or r u just gonna avoid the ?._

A red talk-bubble flag popped up, a white "1" in the center over the Notifications tab. "You have new friend requests!" Fletcher clicked it.

James Rhodes has added you as a friend on Facebook.

She clicked "accept". Then, Fletcher replied to Devin, _you don't need to know._

_is it the guy u talk about in ur statuses?_

She blinked, unable to do anything else for a moment. _yeah…_ Fletcher typed. She hit enter.

Devin's reply came rather quickly, _is it me? a lot of chick like me_

_no._

_who is it then?_ Devin asked.

Another notification flag pooped up as the "Online Friends" list grew to read "2". Devin and Rhodey.

Fletcher felt nauseated. "Busy, busy bee… Busy, busy, lonely bee…" she mumbled.

James Rhodes has suggested friends for you!

"Yeah, 'cause THAT doesn't make me feel even worse… It's like Twitter sounding like stalking…" Fletcher mumbled, clicking the Notification.

Suggested Friends: Tony Stark.

An IM popped up, from Rhodey.

_He isn't that bad, Fletcher._ It read.

A bittersweet smirk on her face, Fletcher put on her gaming headset, adjusting the mic so it was in the proper position. She clicked "Start" and then selected Skype. She clicked the "Facebook Friends" list of contacts, and selected Rhodey's name, which had synched up with Skype when she added the friend. Then she hit the green "call" button.

And then Fletcher stayed up on Skype so he could hear her crying.


	4. Unrealism

**A.N.: **_ Hey thar ev'ryone! I am back with another chapter, typed up weeks ago and never put up for fear of scaring you off with my mega-updates. However, I ended up losing the notebook and this update took WAAAAY longer than originally planned. I am so sorry!_

_So, apparently my work has gone from the initial attack of "its wonderful, update soon" to crap not worthy of reviews from the people who begged me for updates in the first place. I want you all to realize how "love is the w e a p o n" is the story in this entire category with the least reviews. Go ahead, look. _

_(Okay, well it had the least reviews like, two days ago.)_

_It's actually really sad that one-shots have more reviews than a continuous story with what's rumored to be the only decent OC on FF. By the way, Fletcher says thanks for the title._

_**DISCLAIMER:**__ The "555" part of numbers belongs to Hollywood, it's their claimed area code for fake phone numbers. I still don't own Facebook, Twitter, or any other social networking service._

_**SPELL CHECK DIS-TRUST: **__So, is my spell-check just screwing with me or is it seriously spelled "panicked"? Like, "panic", but in past-tense? It looks wrong to me. Really wrong._

_On with the story. And please guys, its five seconds to type "I like it. Update please." or "I don't like it." You don't even have to tell me what you don't like (though I'd love it if you did)._

~~x~~

**love is the **

**w e a p o n**

**(unrealism)**

~~x~~

"She's hard to figure out, yeah, but maybe that's a good thing! She's probably the only thing you can't figure out," Rhodey announced, a hint of laughter in his voice.

"Yeah, and that's what drives me crazy! Now, please! I've got work to do," Tony replied.

"Oh, stop with the excuses, you aren't even listening to me!" shot the brunette's best friend.

"Rhodey, not this again."

"You've got to listen to me sometime, Tony. She's not that bad," Rhodey argued.

"No I don't, and yes, she is." The brunette tightened a bolt on the stealth suit's torso. "Give it a rest, Rhodey, you've been badgering me about this for weeks!"

Rhodey sighed. "How can you say that, you don't even know her!"

"And you do?"

"We've been talking a lot, yeah. We talk a lot about you, actually."

"Oh, great. And I'm sure you told her everything about me. 'Hey, Fletcher? Guess what! Yeah, Tony? He's Iron Man.' THAT will blow over well with those reporters. I can see the headlines now, 'Local Teen Girl Spills Secret Identity of Iron Hero, Turns Out To Be Teen Loser'. Thanks, Rhodey."

"I haven't said anything about that. We talk about the way you act, what you really mean."

Tony stopped. He turned, giving Rhodey a glare. "I mean exactly what it looks like I mean."

"Right," Rhodey laughed. "Like how you really meant that you liked Pepper when you saved her that one time and held her that close."

"You and I both know that I had to hold her close enough to get a decent grip on her, but keep her away from the suits' repulsors…" Tony argued.

"Exactly. So you didn't mean what you acted like you meant. You know, she still thinks you like her."

Laughing, the genius teenager slipped his arm into the left gauntlet for the stealth suit. He wiggled his fingers, making sure it fit right still. Ever since they got it back from Stane, Tony was working on it to make sure it hadn't been tampered with. A few things were looser than they should have been, but perhaps it was from wear-and-tear. He had no idea how the suits held up, really.

"Okay, I see your point."

"So, are you going to listen this time?" Rhodey asked, a hand in his jeans pocket. Tony nodded, smile on his face. "Good. 555-7236."

Rhodey threw a cell phone at Tony. "What?" he asked.

"555-7236," Rhodey repeated.

Tony stared at the phone as if it were alien technology. Slightly shaking, he pressed the numbers. 5, 5, 5.

_Why am I doing this, I don't even know who's number I'm freaking dialing. _

7, 2.

_This could be a huge disaster, What if its Stane and he hears Rhodey talking about the armor or something in the background?_

3, 6.

_Don't press 'send' Tony. Anthony Edward Stark, don't you dare…_

His fingers pressed send. Shaking, he held the phone to his ear.

"Hello?"

He froze. Tony could hear the quiver in her voice. It couldn't be, Rhodey was his _best friend._ Why would Rhodey make him call her. "Um… hi?" he replied nervously.

"Oh, um, hey, Stark. I see Rhodey gave you my number for some inexplicable reason… So, someone must be dying, what's going on?"

No, no, how did Rhodey even have her number? They talked, so he said, but when did they exchange phone numbers? Tony remained silent, stunned speechless.

"StarK? What's up?" she repeated.

"Uh, hey, Fletcher," he finally choked out.

"Hey, Stark. If I'm not mistaken, didn't we already cover this?"

He could hear her smile, see the smirk. "Yeah, I think 's… um.. what's up?"

"Not much is going on right now, Stark. Just a boring old life in New York. Clicking about on Facebook, Twitter, the works. You?"

"Uh…" He looked down; The wrench he was using to fix the Iron Man suit, the schematics for yet another set of armor, shrapnel littering the work table and floor. "Just fixing up some stuff."

"That's cool. The Iron Man suit, I take?"

"W-what?!" Tony exclaimed. He dropped the wrench with a loud clang. "Hold on a second, Fletcher…" Covering the receiver of the phone, Tony called out, "Rhodey!"

"What, what?" replied the boy, calmly making his way across the lab to his best friend.

"You told her. You freaking told her?" Tony hissed, shaking with the terror of the exposure he knew was well underway.

"No, no, I swear!" Rhodey promised, looking just as scared. He and Tony stared at the phone, and slowly the teen genius put it back to his ear.

"So, what was that you were saying?"

"I know you're Iron Man, Stark. It's obvious; Who else could think up that technology? And besides, both you and Iron Man have the same terrible come-backs. Also, ever thought of how he's always saving Stark International? It is be_yond_ obvious, Stark. It's pathetically blatant," she explained. There was silence.

"How long have you known?" he asked suddenly, his tone quiet.

She laughed. "Maybe a week or so, I don't know for sure," Fletcher replied. "But it's your secret, so I swear to keep it. Don't have to worry 'bout a thing, Stark. You've got more of a concern from _Pepper_ than you should from me."

"This doesn't change anything between us, Fletcher," Tony announced.

"I know," Fletcher replied.

She hung up the phone.

~~x~~

"She knew. She _knew_, Rhodey! Fletcher _hates_ me, how am I supposed to trust that she won't tell anyone?" Tony panicked.

"Tell anyone what?" Pepper asked, walking into the bedroom. "That you're Iron Man?"

"Pepper! Shh!" Rhodey exclaimed, shutting the door behind her.

Tony nodded. "Fletcher. She knows."

"You told her?! Why would you-"

"I didn't tell her, Pepper," Tony interrupted. "She figured it out on her own. She just… knew. Said it was obvious, said I would be the only person who could build something like that."

"She's right though, Tony. You've got to be _really_ careful! If she could figure it out… How long until someone else does, too?" Rhodey asked.

"I don't even want to think about it…" Tony mumbled back. There was a soft beep, then the doorbell rang.

"Alright. Um, Pepper?" Tony asked. The beep was from his heart implant, a warning that it had to be recharged.

She picked up on the hint. "Oh, right. Um, see you at school tomorrow, Tony," she replied. He nodded back.

"Tony?" Rhodey called. "You, uh, got a visitor…" the teen knocked on the bedroom door before entering with said guest.

"Oh. Um, I… I can come back another time, I guess… Um," she sputtered, upon walking in on the boy as he had the implant hooked up to charge.

"No, it's fine. What's going on?" He replied. Rhodey walked back downstairs.

"It's, uh.. Stane. I was doing some research online, and I came across this video of a press conference he had. He says he's working on armor for our soldiers, but the blueprints look exactly like yours."

"Um…"

"Just, look into it."

"And you had to come all the way over here to tell me that?" Tony asked. She nodded hesitantly. "Just wanted to see me, huh?"

"Don't push it, Stark."

"Of course, Fallon."

The two paused. "Did you just…?" she asked.

"I think so," Tony replied quickly.

"Well, Tony, it was, uh…"

"You just called me 'Tony'."

"You called me 'Fallon'."

Nothing was said for a minute. Then Tony stood, disconnecting the charging cable from his heart implant, and walked towards Fallon.

"I'm sorry, but that's hilarious and creepy at the same time.," she laughed. Tony smiled, shrugging in a kind of agreement.

"You totally ruined the moment, Fallon."

"I'm not so into the whole Hollywood romance, Stark," she replied with a crooked smirk.

"That's a shame," Tony replied. Then he stepped forward again and kissed her.

And she kissed him back.


End file.
